Impasse
by Rock Salt
Summary: He let out a long sigh that made Hank wish he hadn't said anything. Maybe it was too much. Of course it was too much, blatantly suggesting that a kid's father might murder him in a drugged up rage. The boy smiled wanly. "I've considered that, before."


**I'm broke. I don't have a penny they can sue me for, but I'll say it anyway in case rich, Hollywood lawyers get their kicks or warm and fuzzies from suing a teenager for the hell of it: I don't own Royal Pains. **

**Language… you decide. Rated T for Teen and Prepubescent Pretenders, 'cause I can't stop you if I wanted to.**

**AU, for sure, but a 'what if' AU. This is a 'Had the Jacket Scenario Gone Much More Smoothly for Marshall Bryant' scenario. If there are others, that is. If not, it is **_**the**_** 'Had the Jacket Scenario Gone Much More Smoothly for Marshall Bryant' scenario (for the moment). R&R, my lovelies?**

Italics =letter.

_To whom it may concern,_

_Dad is making an effort to be around more often, which is too bad, as it turns out. He gets messed up a lot of the time. Most of the time, actually._

_I know he's itching to beat me hard. I justify his actions, though not entirely, with mine._

_I think he's coming to that point again, where one word I say can send him over the edge._

_I'm talking 'Drunk, High, and/or Otherwise Compromised Dad'. I haven't seen much of 'Sober Dad' lately, so I can't say what _he_ thinks about any of it, but I bet his fuse would at least be a little longer._

_Sober, he can't stand to be in the same room with me for more than a minute or two… uh, never mind. That's me, taking it a little too personally. Without me in the equation, you still have this: _He can't stand to be sober for more than a few minutes.

_I take a hit like a champ. In theory, I could take just as many hits as anyone else, but I always start bleeding before I get to that point. (He can't think straight when he's smashed on the drug of the week and n number of shots, and so he hasn't worked out how to lengthen his cathartics without killing me, yet.) _

_So, really, it all depends on where he hits me. And he often forgets where I bleed easily and where I bleed a lot._

_If he sets himself just right, my father could kill me with one really crazy punch._

_The control he has over my life is terrifying._

_He can't do it all the time, though. People would get suspicious, start asking questions about the oh-so-respectable Mr. Bryant. The fact that he still isn't a _real_ constant in my life stretches out the occurrences just a bit._

_Of course, when he's in town and has a few minutes to spare, he slaps me around a little between times. He wouldn't be the 'charming' man I know today if he didn't. I never know when he's seriously going to beat the crap out of me or if he's only passing through._

_For a while, about a month, I wondered why he didn't just get a greedy private doctor and pay him large sums of hush money to keep me alive so he could thrash me as hard as he liked whenever it struck his fancy._

_(My father likes to see a person at the end of his rope, physically and psychologically, because it empowers _him_. Living with him makes me a very convenient target.)_

_Dad did eventually get a greedy private doctor in reserve, when he discovered his new favorite drunken pastime._

_His name is Petit. He wears rectangular, black-rimmed glasses that seem to hurt his vision more than help it and he has quick, watery eyes that see everything and acknowledge nothing._

_I hate going to him, partly because he's a 'friend' of my dad's, mostly because he doesn't have a soul._

_When he looks at me, he doesn't see injuries or blood, or even recognize the lump of flesh in front of him as human. He's sees only money. 'Guess he actually does need glasses. (I'll suggest coke-bottle lenses next time I see him.)_

_He'll always ask the same question: "How is Tucker today?"_

_Then he'll stare at me like I'm a disobedient child when I say something along the lines of, "Not so good, doctor. My daddy beat the crap out of me about half-an-hour ago. Can you stop the bleeding, pretty please?"_

_Dad doesn't need to go about it so secretively, though. He has good friends high up in the system, and money, of course, really helps him, since he has full access to it while I basically have nil._

_If he got snagged on a child abuse charge, it would be waived and things would go on nearly the same way. He might get extra hammered and punish me for word leaking out._

_I learned very quickly that anything and everything was _my_ fault. Always. At first, I almost believed that. All it is, though, is his justification. He has a weird thought process—it is quick to place blame anywhere other than at his own feet, and whatever has to be done to help shift the guilt, there's no second-guessing it._

_I must have taken a wrong turn growing up—like when I was born successfully. And it took him a few years to notice that I was there. _

_Well, I'm going by the beatings. He might be going all asshole-alpha-male on me because he's an insecure coward and a prick like that, and he never learned how to express positive emotions normally… or just painlessly. _

_If he did a rain dance to show affection, I might be cool with that. It would be weird, but I wouldn't be in danger of passing out or bleeding to death._

_It only actually began after the 'Tell __Hank about Dad__' adventure, when we were upstairs arguing about his drinking, and then a few times on the Safari trip._

_Then, it wasn't so bad. It became serious when I became antagonistic, after we got back. Crap, I guess that _is_ kind of my fault._

_Before Hank knew about Dad's drugs, he was less… physical. That was months ago. Someone knowing about his substance abuse just pissed him off._

_Melodramatically yours,_

_-Tucker._

"Drama Queen much?" He muttered to himself, crumpling the letter.

He sat back against the wall and threw the wadded-up paper at the trashcan. It bounced off the wall and skittered to a stop in the corner next to his bed.

Tucker heaved a sigh, dangling his legs over the side of the mattress.

He didn't know if he intended the letter for anyone, anyway. Probably not. It was more of a venting/cleansing thing.

On paper, it sounded so much worse than it was. _Words_ made things sound worse than they were. They just blew things up, past the point of 'way out of proportion' and bordering 'Greek Tragedy'.

He raked a hand through his hair, musing to himself.

Sure. That, along with the humiliation of it all, was why he didn't discuss those things.

Stringing words together to form a cohesive sentence just naturally…grossly exaggerated events. Talking about stuff like that was like claiming a tragic life of Greek proportions.

A moment later, he heard the front door open and slam shut.

There was a pause, as if the older Bryant were taking in the appearance of the house, and then powerful, angry footsteps thundered up the stairs.

Tucker's knuckles turned white, his hands balled into fists in his lap.

"What will it be tonight? Are there any takers?" He asked a non-existent audience in a grand, sarcastic voice. "No one? Jesus, what a buzz kill."

His bedroom door banged open and Tucker glared at the graceless silhouette of his father standing in the frame.

The mouth jerked into a scowl. "What? Not happy to see me?" The words could be nothing more than thick, muddled noises if his son weren't so well versed in the slurring tongue of drunken fools.

Tucker couldn't help but laugh a little at how his Dad sounded, which earned him an angry stare. Having slipped up and landed himself on the Shit List so soon, he decided to continue the thread of that reaction.

With a mocking expression, he replied, "No, not remotely. I can smell you from here, and you smell like a bar threw up on you..." He wafted the fumes to his nose and recoiled in exaggerated disgust.

"... and then you threw up on yourself. You really have to learn to hold your liquor, Dad— plenty of other men can have a drink without getting sick all over themselves and each other. Why not you, after all these dedicated years of practicing inebriated dereliction?"

I hope I the tone I conveyed is (to my readers) within reasonable bounds of a teenager's reaction to this kind of crap. I find the effect to be variable (and tragic, but that's beside the point), and I'm working into the fic several elements.

**This is my first fanfic, so bear with me, folks.**

**Review, please? I have an inferiority complex and I need constant reassurance.**


End file.
